The most famous auction items to come out of Toronto

The ball from Jose Bautista’s triumph over the Texas Rangers in 2015 (also known as the “bat flip ball”) is up for auction, with a starting bid of $3,500 USD. This certainly isn’t the first time a surprising piece of memorabilia has surfaced online. Below, we round up the most famous auction items to come out of Toronto.

A six-year-old McDonald’s meal
One brave man decided to see whether McDonald’s food could withstand the test of time. He purchased a cheeseburger and fries and left it untouched for six years before trying to resell the meal, which still looked suspiciously edible, on eBay for $29 in 2018. In a single day, the item fetched more than five times its asking price. The seller, Dave Alexander, warned buyers, “don’t eat this thing.”

A rare Prince record 
An extremely rare Toronto-made copy of the late music icon’s 1987 Black Album was auctioned off for $27,500 last year. Prince himself ordered all 500,000 copies of the album to be destroyed prior to its release, and it was previously believed that there were no surviving copies. This one was discovered by a former employee of the Toronto pressing plant that manufactured the album.

Some pricey Drake memorabilia 
While Drake was still playing Jimmy Brooks on Degrassi, he kept a purple spiral journal filled with song lyrics, phone numbers and notes on day-to-day life. One (very devoted) fan purchased this little piece of his past for $54,000.

A Hendrix arrest card
Upon arriving at Pearson airport back in 1969, Jimi Hendrix was detained for having a small stash of heroin and hash in his luggage. Customs agents released him on a $10,000 bail so he could go play his show at Maple Leaf Gardens that night. The arrest card, complete with finger prints and a the rock idol’s signature, was put up for auction last year for a cool $29,248.

A vintage golf jacket
In 2017, a lucky sports journalist was sifting through the racks at a Toronto Goodwill and stumbled across a green jacket that belonged to an unknown member of the Augusta National Golf Club. He paid $5 for the ordinary looking blazer and resold it for $185,000 USD at an auction last year.

The infamous Rob Ford “crack tie”
A few years after late mayor Rob Ford confessed to smoking crack cocaine back in 2013, he decided to list the NFL-patterned tie he was wearing at the press conference on eBay. Some scandal enthusiast purchased the important piece of Toronto history for $1,445 and then re-listed it for $10,000. in 2018.

Justin Bieber’s shoe
In 2015, Stratford-born superstar Justin Bieber put his shoes on the market in a charity auction to support his home town’s food bank. The old pair of autographed Nike’s sold on eBay for more that $62,000, along with his used comforter, pillow case and ceiling light, which received bids of over $6,000, $3,000, and just under $2,000, respectively.

Britney Spears’ gum
During the Toronto leg of her tour in 2004, Britney Spears spit out a wad of gum, which ended up in the hands of Mississauga resident Brian Johnson, who was working backstage during the concert. He listed the chewed gum online with an asking price of $1,000, but a bidding war drove the price up to $14,000.